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Publisher's Summary

The Pimsleur® Method: the easiest, fastest way to learn a new language. Completely portable, easily downloadable, and lots of fun. You’ll be speaking and understanding in no time flat!

Spanish Phase 1, Units 1-5 build on material taught in prior units. Each lesson provides 30 minutes of spoken language practice, with an introductory conversation, and new vocabulary and structures. Detailed instructions enable you to understand and participate in the conversation. Each lesson contains practice for vocabulary introduced in previous lessons. The emphasis is on pronunciation and comprehension, and on learning to speak Spanish.

What the Critics Say

"Pimsleur programs provide plenty of positive reinforcement that will keep learners on track, and we found that Pimsleur gave us more proficiency and confidence in speaking the new language than any of the other language programs we reviewed." (AudioFile magazine)

I've wanted to learn Spanish for years. I took two years in school and recall beginning to think in Spanish. I know that should be an indication that I have some aptitude, but all it and those years amounted to later was knowing what the Taco Bell dog said before reading the subtitle. I've tried every book and audio book that my library had to offer. I've spent $150 on a DVD set that promised great things. I was doing research on the best price for Rosetta Stone when I stumbled onto this method. Since I'd tried audio books before, I was skeptical, but since using credits on Audible made it such a great price, I decided to try it. And I have been surprised at the easy results! Because this method uses only audio, I'm not hampered by years of training in English pronunciation. Now instead of trying to fit the H into hablo, I hear it as "ablo". As the mother of a four-year-old, I understand the need to learn to speak before reading and writing. That doesn't mean that I can't learn to read it later, just as my son is learning to read English despite our idiosyncrasies. There is a free sample with the introduction and first lesson on Audible. Try it and you'll see.

Where does Spanish Phase 1, Unit 01-05 rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

I have found this method to be a quick, easy method for learning to speak spanish. You can go back and review previous sections, chapters if need be and/or continue forward with learning as they suggest. I have found that doing a half hour each day works extremely well. I am super pleased with Pimsleur and would highly recommend it to anyone.

The lessons are short and expensive. Very little new material is covered with each lesson, so at the end of the day I feel like I paid a lot of money for very little in terms of knowledge gained. If the price were reduced significantly, or the lessons were acquired during a really good sale then they might be worth it.

For someone who is just starting out this is the place to start. I know some Spanish so it was not helpful for me to start with this lesson. I would recommend this to those wanting to learn Spanish though.

I am very disappointed that I paid money for a thirty minute introduction, and not one word of Spanish was spoken or taught. There was nothing in the blurb that told me I was buying an introduction. It should have been included in the first lesson rather than a separate audio book. I feel rather ripped off.

What could Pimsleur have done to make this a more enjoyable book for you?

Don't charge for the instructions, include that in your first lesson

Would you be willing to try another one of the narrator’s performances?

I have no issue with the narrator

If you could play editor, what scene or scenes would you have cut from Spanish Phase 1, Unit 01-05?

I think I've made my point

Any additional comments?

This is the first poor review I have written but I feel so angry about this that I was compelled to complain

This really worked for me. I used it to brush up on Spanish before traveling to Central America. I had studied Spanish in school but never felt comfortable speaking. It seemed overly simple. However I followed the directions exactly. I was shocked at how effective it was. I had the confidence to speak in situations that would have caused me to grapple for words in the past. Successive units quickly add terms and expressions but the pace is amazingly manageable.

I am currently in lesson 21, but I decided to write the review for lessons 1-5 since this is where beginners begin!

A year of Spanish in college years ago and a number of sessions with Coffee Break Spanish did not provide me with the useful knowledge that just the first 20 lessons with Pimsleur have provided. I recommend giving it a try if you want to learn some conversational Spanish that you might actually use at some time. I am searching out every Spanish speaker I can find to practice on. What fun!

I just finished Pimsleur Spanish phases 1-3 which I bought on audible.com. In short, I thought they were fantastic!

Each phase consists of 30 units, each about 30 minutes long. Hence, I did 90 units altogether. That sounds like a lot, but I did almost all of them while driving to and from work when I worked in Mountain View. I streamed them from my phone through my stereo using bluetooth.

Before I started, I already had a decent grasp of Spanish. However, I started Pimsleur Spanish from scratch. I'm normally a very visual learner, and Spanish is a pretty easy language to learn visually since it's so phonetic. However, I needed something to do while driving upwards of three hours a day, and this fit the bill. I really like how conversational it is. It constantly pushes you to say new things in new situations using your existing knowledge of vocabulary and grammar.

I know that some people have said that they thought Pimsleur Spanish was a little boring compared to Rosetta Stone. However, Rosetta Stone requires you to be in front of a computer, and I needed something that I could do while driving. By the way, I recommend only attempting this on long, fairly boring freeway trips. It takes up a little too much mental bandwidth to attempt on city streets.

After studying Spanish for several months, I was able to give a technical talk in Spanish in Mexico City. Doing the talk live was terrifying, and I'll admit that my voice was shaking quite a bit. However, later I did a screencast of it, Esto es Dart. That went pretty well.

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